Esteemed Chief Rabbi, Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen, on this
day the most painful of all the wounds inflicted on us here in Hamburg through the
destruction of houses of prayer during the years of terror and darkness is beginning
to heal. I say “the most painful of all the wounds,” for with the burning of the
synagogues, the wrecking and closing of Jewish houses of prayer in Hamburg and Altona, something much
worse than the destruction and damaging of churches during the total war waged by Hitler occurred. Here, hell rose
against God and humanity in the deepest time of peace, and demons and furies were
unleashed. What happened here and what fills us with grief and outrage to this day
was the sacrilege against God, to whom all human beings owe the light of this world.
The memory of this terrible time cannot be evoked more powerfully than through the
words of Leo Baeck,
Chief Rabbi from Berlin, who wrote the
following on the 15th anniversary of the November pogrom: “How often have
the images of that night on which the great sacrilege, the burning of the Jewish
houses of prayer, occurred, reappeared before us, whether we wanted it or not? Again
we thought to hear, although we turned away our ears, the voices that called to us
on that night: ‘The synagogues are burning!’” What is it that was destroyed back
then? Not only were the Jewish houses of prayer demolished, but with them pillars
and supports of a human bond one relied on collapsed. One believed there was one
thing that would always join everyone together: a reverence for the place people
come to so that they may uplift themselves to the Eternal from the day’s
constrictions and hardship. To the place where the invisible draws close to them and
infinite silence turns to them. Back on that night when one [lost material] inaudible whether one wanted to
know or didn’t, hands were laid on this country’s churches as well. On them, too,
for the synagogue historically and spiritually is the mother of all churches. One
and the same certainty seeks to reveal itself in both places, and even if the manner
and path may differ, in the end Jewish and Christian houses of prayer share an
indivisible fate. And what is done to one is also inflicted on the other. In its
aftermath many a day has made this obvious in Germany, and only those who
wanted to be blind saw it neither back then nor later. Something else was destroyed
at that time: a vivid history that had grown on German soil and from German soil and
that carried within itself the promise of a fertile future, this was destroyed then.
The senate of our venerable
old Hanseatic city
and our state parliament as
well as all citizens of our city who are of good will are honor bound to contribute to the
completion of the good work that is to be begun with the laying of this foundation
stone. With it we seek to restore reverence for the sacred. And we are glad that
both our government and state
parliament are able to contribute to creating the necessary material
foundations for the construction of this new house of prayer. At this hour we cannot
help but let our thoughts travel back twenty years, back to those years when the
Jewish community in
Hamburg and
Altona
counted twenty-six thousand souls altogether. It was, as I mentioned before, a
flourishing community, and the members of this community were respected and good
citizens of our city. They belonged to all professions. Outstanding members of their
community have earned great merit in the senate and in our government
offices. I’d like to mention Senator
Karel Cohn and Privy
Counsellor
Lippmann. Distinguished
Jewish scholars were a boon to our university: philosopher [lost material] inaudibleErnst Cassirer, art
historian Erwin Panofsky,
private scholar Aby
Warburg or Albrecht
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, from the family of the great musician. A
family that, like so many others of its kind, has developed close ties to our
city’s
intellectual life over several generations. Men like Albert Ballin and Max Warburg have an excellent
reputation in the world, which also increased Hamburg’s renown among
merchants, shipping company owners, and financial experts. Among the most
flourishing members of our merchant class, too, there were many Jewish names.
However, I must not and do not want to forget all the many others who were simple
citizens and had made their happiness and home here in our midst. One of the men
whose name affects me particularly strongly has been mentioned earlier by our
esteemed Chief Rabbi. It is the name of our former
Chief Rabbi in Altona,
Rabbi
Carlebach, with whom I
felt a particular personal bond. Today we must bring up the painful question of what
has become of all of them. A Jewish memorial out in Ohlsdorf names seven
thousand dead members of the community, but many others who were of Jewish origin and were
unwilling to deny their origin died as well. Today the Jewish community counts one
thousand three hundred ninety members, of whom perhaps about three hundred lived in
our city before
1933. This tragic development is a painful reminder for
us all of that terrible time that also drove me from my home town in 1933. During the years of my emigration, every time I met
someone in other European
countries, in the USA or in the Far East who
had been saved, my heart felt lighter. Today we send our greetings to all these
saved ones who once belonged to us. And we bow in respect and sorrow before those
slain. When you, ladies and gentlemen of the Jewish community, after 1945 took on the difficult task of rebuilding your
congregation that had been so tragically decimated, you found even more of your
friends’ graves in ruins. Every bit of progress in the rebuilding of your
institutions moved us and also met with great sympathy in Hamburg’s city hall.
As the crowning achievement of all the efforts to rebuild your congregation, by which Mr.
Harry Goldstein in
particular has earned great merit, now follows the groundbreaking of your synagogue,
which will be the heart of your congregation. You have had to make do with a provisional solution for
a long time, and it was painful to us, too, that this makeshift was inadequate. This
has now come to an end. Hamburg restores a part of its dignity when it allies itself with
its Jewish fellow citizens and the Jewish congregation in order to create a new, appropriate house of
prayer. May the peace of your faith’s inviolability, which we all feel close to in
shared brotherhood and humanity, inhabit it. No one has expressed the hope for a new
beginning more poignantly and beautifully than the above-mentioned Leo Baeck, who had to suffer for
his faith in the Theresienstadt
camp. He expressed what also moves us in this moment when he wrote:
“The last, the decisive word is that of a hope that lasts. Of genuine, true hope,
and a Jew may say, of ancient Jewish hope. It speaks from the eternal commandment
and from the eternal ‘thou shalt’ of God’s word, this hope, at once commandment and
comfort and confidence. For this is what it is, a hope lasting throughout the
history of mankind. The human being, each individual just as the people as a whole,
can and is supposed to begin anew at any time. This strength to turn back towards
God is intrinsic to everyone, and the path of the eternal opens up before everyone.
From destruction speaks a warning that is also a hope: ‘Pave the way for the
eternal.’”

[…]Reading of the Jewish
Congregation charter for the groundbreaking of their synagogue[…]

By laying the foundation stone for this new synagogue, we consecrate this
synagogue to the lasting honor and the memory of the dead. A reminder to the living
and a place for future generations that opens the path to true humanity.

Source Description

When the foundation stone of the new synagogue was laid on November 9, 1958, Hamburg’s
mayor, Max
Brauer, was present to give a speech. Hamburg’s first
synagogue of the postwar
period was built at Hohe Weide.
Previously the small Jewish
congregation had to hold prayer services in provisional prayer
halls. In his speech, which was about twelve minutes long, Max Brauer commemorated the
persecution and murder of Hamburg’s Jewish citizens during National Socialism and
honored the efforts made to rebuild Jewish life after 1945. His speech was broadcast on the radio on November 11, 1958 and is in the collection of the
NDR
sound archive
Tonarchiv. According to archive
records, the broadcast was produced by the editorial staff of the program
“Reportage.” The sound recording includes both Brauer’s speech, which is
interrupted by the reading of the founding charter, and a speech given by
Rabbi
Ludwig Salomonowicz. At the end of the
recording, the symbolic groundbreaking by spade and the blessing spoken by the
rabbi can be heard.

Recommended Citation

Speech Given by Mayor Max Brauer on the Occasion of the Groundbreaking for the Synagogue at Hohe Weide, November 9, 1958 (translated by Insa Kummer), edited in: Key Documents of German-Jewish History,
<https://dx.doi.org/10.23691/jgo:source-146.en.v1> [February 22, 2019].

Source

Max Brauer's speech on occasion of the laying of the foundation stone of the synagogue at Hohe Weide, first broadcasted 9 November 1958; with kind permission of Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR). The moral rights remain protected.